2021 Film Schedule

November 6, 2021 – 14:00 Pacific Time

MY DEAR MOTHER

Dasha is a native nine-year-old Lapp girl. She is an inmate of a Russian orphanage, even when she is not an orphan. Tasha believes that her mother is dead and that her father is in jail for life. To survive she has found a Russian stepmother at the orphanage. One day her biological mother suddenly calls her. In the background of Tasha’s fate lurks the greater global narrative about the “stolen generations”. Children belonging to different indigenous peoples all over the world were “stolen” and placed in orphanages hoping that they might be assimilated into the majority population.

November 6, 2021 – 15:30 Pacific Time

THE MIDDLE PLACE – TJUVECEKADAN

Liao Min, which was stayed in UK based for years and speaks fluent English. She was a modern woman who lived in a busy modern city. She comes from an indigenous village on an island country, Taiwan. She is the daughter of a Paiwan chief This means she will be the future chief Original Tjuvecekadan (Chijia) tribal village with stone slab houses is the southernmost settlement of the Paiwan tribe in Taiwan. It has over 50 traditional stone plate houses. They are over 400 years old and have been well preserved. There is not a single electricity pole in this village. Among all traditional villages of aboriginal people in Taiwan, it is the most iconic potential cultural heritage site and a potential World Heritage Site in Taiwan. Hearing the call of her ancestral spirits, Liao Min left behind her overseas city life and came home. She implemented a slate slab house restoration project with other young people. However, the people of her village asked if this young woman who had rebelled against orthodoxy and even broken taboo by marrying an outsider, could really be their next leader?

November 6, 2021 – 16:30 Pacific Time

WE, THE VOYAGERS: OUR VAKA

Logline for the series: We are the crew of Lata, the Polynesian culture-hero who built the first voyaging canoe and navigated across the Pacific. We use only ancient designs, materials, and methods, and we invite everyone to reconnect with ancestors and sustainable lifeways. Come join the crew of the real Moana! Part 1. We, the Voyagers: Our Vaka (56 minutes 15 seconds) We, Polynesian voyagers of Taumako, Solomon Islands, share our history, motivations, and skills, through story-telling, canoe building, and wayfinding. We recall our ancestors, who made the greatest human migration. We use only designs, materials, and methods of our culture-hero, Lata, who built the first voyaging canoe (vaka) and navigated to distant islands. After Europeans took over we became isolated and unsustainable. In 1996 Paramount Chief Kaveia, our most experienced navigator, led us in planting gardens, feeding workers, making rope from plants, weaving and sewing sails, protecting our trees, adzing parts for voyaging canoes, and lashing them together. Kaveia also enlisted an anthropologist to help us make films. After Kaveia died in 2009, Chief Holani became our new Lata, and prepared us for an open ocean voyage. Our story of Lata teaches that everyone is welcome in Lata’s crew, and that we can avoid making key mistakes as we prepare to connect with long-lost family and new friends on faraway shores.

November 7, 2021 – 12:00 Pacific Time

REZ METAL

When Kyle Felter, the lead singer of I Don’t Konform sent out a demo album to Flemming Rasmussen, the Grammy Award-winner producer of Metallica, they never imagined themselves a few months later rehearsing with Rasmussen inside a hot hogan on a Navajo reservation before recording their debut album at the iconic Sweet Silence Studio in Denmark. While following I Don’t Konform’s fairy tale journey, our documentary REZ METAL, tells the larger compelling story of the heavy metal scene on Navajo reservations where many youths have grown disaffected as a result of endemic poverty and high rate of suicides.

November 7, 2021 – 17:00 Pacific Time

FRUITVILLE

THE WORLD’S FIRST FRUIT ANIMATION FEATURE FILM. MADE WITH REAL FRUIT! A quirky, animated comedy-drama about a group of real fruit who face an existential crisis when plastic fruit are brought into their space. Much debate and division occur as they attempt to deal with this “problem” resulting in great hilarity and ultimately in a deeper understanding of the fruits’ place in the order of things.

November 13, 2021 – 12:00 Pacific Time

WE, THE VOYAGERS: OUR MOANA

We are the living crew of Lata, our Polynesian culture-hero who built the first voyaging canoe and navigated across the Pacific. We use only ancient designs, materials, and methods, and we invite everyone to reconnect with ancestors and sustainable lifeways. This is the real Moana! In our recently isolated Polynesian community, we live the story of our ancestral culture-hero, Lata. To make a voyage Lata needs crew. He welcomes men, women and children, hard workers with skills and applicants of dubious character, including a sailing anthropologist. Our community blesses our vessel, and we learn how to sail the open ocean in Lata’s arms, interacting with winds, waves, stars, and other signs that our ancestors show us when we need them. We arrive at islands and learn what happened to family members since the last voyage, generations earlier. We reconcile, reaffirm our love for each other, and look to our future together.

November 13, 2021 – 13:00 Pacific Time

A HUNDRED YEAR JOURNEY

Lofty Katakarinja is an Arrernte Elder and Shaun Angeles a young man learning cultural knowledge from him. A hundred years ago something precious was taken from their people. They travel from Central Australia to the other side of the World, tracking part of their cultural heritage. What they encounter in Finland, an environment completely different from their own place of origin, is something very powerful. The film A Hundred Year Journey is based on a project by the Helinä Rautavaara Museum. It documents a rare encounter between cultural objects, the heirs of their original owners and creators, and two museums. The storyline follows the journey of these objects collected by missionary Oskar Liebler, who worked in Hermannsburg in central Australia in the early 20th century. Liebler collected approximately 2000 cultural objects from local First Nations communities, among which were the Arrernte Peoples. A part of his collection ended up in Finland. A hundred years later, in June 2018, Lofty Katakarinja and Shaun Angeles travel to Finland to learn about the extent of their cultural footprint in the northern hemisphere, reuniting the objects with people who are their cultural inheritors. The project involved several partners: the National Museum of Finland, the Strehlow Research Centre, the University of Sydney and the Nura Gili Indigenous Programs Unit, UNSW, and was implemented with the support of the Kone Foundation. Two members of the production team have native ancestry, Matt Poll (Screenwriter, Torres Strait Islanders) and Shaun Angeles (2nd camera, Arrernte).

November 13, 2021 – 14:00 Pacific Time

WHEN WE GATHER

“When We Gather” (2021) is a short art film that celebrates the women who have played an elemental role in the progress of the United States and offers a call to create a path forward for the leaders of the future. Conceived by renowned artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons, in collaboration with LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs and Okwui Okpokwasili, the film is directed by Codie Elaine Oliver [Black Love, OWN] and produced over an eight-week period by San Francisco based gallerist Wendi Norris. “When We Gather: Together” is a 35-minute special that contextualizes the themes of the film: heal, unite, create. It features creative conversations, diverse artistic performances, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the director and performers, and an array of arts and education professionals. This special program is co-produced and hosted by Dr. Nikki A. Greene, tenured professor of art history at Wellesley College and author of an upcoming book that prominently features Campos-Pons.

November 13, 2021 – 16:30 Pacific Time

54 YEARS LATE

“54 YEARS LATE” is a short film that tells the gut-wrenching true-life story of Terry Gene Wright, a 58-year-old African American man who was not diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) until the age of 54 despite being seen by an array of healthcare practitioners, enduring countless hospitalizations and surgeries, and having all the classic symptoms of CF – a progressive and genetic disease that’s often perceived to affect only the Caucasian population. Written and directed by Michele Wright, Ph.D., and produced by Butterbean Productions, this movie emotionally depicts Terry’s roughly 5 ½-decade painful and surreal journey from childhood to adulthood to finally being diagnosed with CF “54 YEARS LATE”!

November 14, 2021 – 12:00 Pacific Time

COUNTDOWN TO YEAR ZERO

Countdown to Year Zero hones in on an unprecedented global disaster that is rapidly unfolding. If we don’t take meaningful action on climate change now we may soon reach a point of no return. This film offers a specific solution to reverse climate change that centers around the daily choices everyone makes. Be inspired by world renowned social media influencers, activists and celebrities! Learn what others are doing and how, together, we have the power to heal our planet.

November 19, 2021 – 15:00 Pacific Time

TRADITIONAL INDIGENOUS WAYS OF BEING

An Ed Breeding Film. Featuring Geronimo Vela and Dr. Lisa Grayshield. Revision Editing by Geronimo Vela. TRADITIONAL INDIGENOUS WAYS OF BEING is an excellent ‘blueprint’ for us all to follow, if we want to have a better future for ourselves and our children on this planet. It should be obvious to anyone that has been paying attention to all of the negative actions of humans on this planet, that we need a major paradigm shift to take place, to get us on a different and better trajectory, if we hope to survive as a species. Our Sacred Earth Mother is the ‘Star’ of this film, and from her messages of great wisdom, we learn about the importance of balance and harmony with our environment and all living things. She teaches us about the need for incorporating RESPECT-DISCIPLINE-RESPONSIBILITY (RDR) in all of our actions. Geronimo Vela-Apache, and Dr. Lisa Grayshield-Washoe, offer us very much needed and important messages in how to use TRADITIONAL INDIGENOUS WAYS OF BEING in our daily lives in order to get back into harmony and balance with our Sacred Earth Mother, our environment, and all living things, or else continue on the way our species has been going and experience a mass-extinction. The choice is ours.

November 20, 2021 – 13:00 Pacific Time

THE WHISPER OF THE MARIMBA

The marimba is the bridge between Africa and Latin America. The sound of the wooden xylophone connects the present-day life on the Ecuadorian Pacific coast with its African roots. Hundreds of years ago, the marimba music came to Ecuador across the sea. Stormy drum rhythms and the gentle, undulating melodies remind us of the violence experienced during slave trade and colonial rule and also tell the story of the centuries-old musical resistance of the Afro-Ecuadorian community. In 2015 the marimba music has been declared as an UNESCO World Cultural Heritage. “The Whisper of the Marimba” portrays three generations of musicians who lay bare their worries and dreams as well as their unshakable trust in the power of art and music to nurture their identity and community. A story of losing memory and rewriting history.

November 20, 2021 – 16:00 Pacific Time

DADA LAKHMI

Dada Lakhmi Film is based on a Musical journey of Pandit Lakhmichand. Pt. Lakhmichand was a folk artist of Haryana from district Sonipat Village Janti, Punjab , now Haryana , Near Singhu Border. He never went to school but he was one of the most learned personality of Haryana. He was famous as “Shakespeare of Haryana . Kabir, Gandharv Purush, Bhavishya Wakta, & Surya Kavi, He was born in 1903 and died in 1945. In this short period he became so famous that people used to come on bullock cart from 50-60 miles to listen his Raginis and to watch saangs. He was an actor, Director, Producer, Singer, Creator overall all rounder. Other singers and saangies were so jealous of him. One day a saangi mixed mercury and vermilion in his food and water, that became poisonous. He lost his voice and the film shows his struggle how he came back to normal and started singing again. Actually the theme of the film is that. Let’s go in the land where there is no hatred, no violence, . Only music, love and brotherhood survives.

November 21, 2021 – 15:00 Pacific Time

LA LUCHA SIGUE

In Honduras, the most dangerous place in the world to be a land defender, the Lenca and Garífuna people are not backing down. They are fighting to uphold their spirituality and Indigenous ways of life in the face of state backed megaprojects and narco-traffickers who seek to assassinate them, destroy their lands, and erase their existence.

November 27, 2020 – 16:00 Pacific Time

AINU-INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF JAPAN

The Ainu are the indigenous people of Japan. Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, was previously called Ainumosir, or land of the Ainu. The Ainu tradition has been disappearing seriously: the latest survey shows population of the Ainu is less than 20,000 people in Hokkaido, and UNESCO has recognized the language as ‘critically endangered.’ This film is captured in Biratori town in Hokkaido, where many people with Ainu roots still live. It is also known as the hometown of the late Shigeru Kayano, who contributed greatly to the field of research on Ainu culture. Since 1869, as a result of the new Meiji government’s categorizing the Ainu people as “commoners” in family registries, implementing assimilation policies, and developing their land, the Ainu culture has quickly declined. After 150 years, modern-day Ainu live joyfully in this town with Ainu’s traditional culture while adapting it to their current lifestyle. The main characters in this documentary are four Ainu elders, who were born in 1930s. One who has experienced discrimination and poverty, another who makes traditional Ainu dress, one who remembers oral folklore told by her grandmother, and another who has observed traditional rituals, such as the bear sacrifice ceremony. They remember their parents and grandparents spoke in Ainu but they weren’t actually taught the language as parents belived that children will have better life if they live as “Japanese.” After many decades passed, they have tried to educate themselves and be proactive as local leaders. This documentary tells the story how Ainu cultural tradition is alive now through people’s efforts.

November 28, 2021 – 15:00 Pacific Time

ABOUT LOVE

Piper Dellums & Gold Lauderdale narrate a poetic meditative contemplative about Love.

November 28, 2021 – 16:30 Pacific Time

DRAMAYAMA

A journey Inside, an Astrological Cosmic Dance beyond the End of the Maya Calendar. Follow Branly, Guatamalan timekeeper, 21st century Mayan, on his cosmic quest for meaning and reaffirmation of his Mayan spirituality through the echoes of an ancient civilization in the Vedic South of India.

Short Synopsis  Experience a space time travel through past, present and future through the eyes of Guatemalan timekeeper Branly Gio Lopez, along rituals for the Planets of our Solar System still alive in the Dravidian Temples in the Vedic South of India. Ever since the ‘End of the Mayan calendar’ Branly has researched techniques and the meaning of Mayan Cosmology, trying to recover ancient rituals and knowledge painfully devastated by 500 years of colonization. During his vision quest he slowly recognizes deep roots in the echos of an old civilisation. Meanwhile the volcano erupts, the temple elephant dies and the turtle breathes home.

www.dramayama.com

G-Network-Film-Foundation, Prinseneiland 321, 1013 LP Amsterdam, The Netherlands  06 24723765

Director:www.Jeanette-Groenendaal.com     Founder: www.G-network-Film.com    Movie: www.dramayama.com    Astrology: www.we-are-stardust.nl